Posts: 1-16 of 84

Pretty often people join the forum who are fairly new to chipmusic. Welcome! Similar questions tend to crop up.

Common topics are the nature of chipmusic, questions about where to find chipmusic and who to listen to and how to make or perform chipmusic. This little FAQ provides links to threads on the forum and links to external resources which should be useful.

If you would be kind enough to read the FAQ before posting new threads on these topics it would be awesome!

› How do I make chipmusic?

‹ How do I make chipmusic?

› 1 - Chipmusic on a modern PC

‹ 1 - Chipmusic on a modern PC

› Preamble, "Is using a modern solution "fakebit""?

‹ Preamble, "Is using a modern solution "fakebit""?

Lets slay that dragon now, fakebit is a poorly defined term which seems to get thrown around when elitists feel chipmusic is lacking authenticity or occasionally as a joke term. I have created a simple flow chart to help you deal with the term when you hear it.

Fakebit flowchat

"I heard someone using the term fakebit and they weren't joking" -------> Make a mental note that are probably an idiot, Ignore them and go about making your music.

Moving on,

› How do I make Chip music for modern PCs with a modern DAW?

‹ How do I make Chip music for modern PCs with a modern DAW?

If you are using modern composition software such as Ableton, FL Studio, Sonar, etc using a VST is a pretty good way to begin. The most comprehensive is almost certainly Chipsounds by David Plogue.

› How do I make chip music on a modern PC with a modern tracker?

‹ How do I make chip music on a modern PC with a modern tracker?

There are a several modern trackers in development:

Renoise (Win/Mac/Linux)Incredibly full featured and has a free demo and is in very active development.

OpenMPT (Win only)Not quite as full featured as Renoise but a very good tracker with VST support

› How do I make chip music on a NES?

‹ How do I make chip music on a NES?

Please note you can try any of the programs in the emulator Nintendulator before you buy any hardware to see if you like them.

› How do I make Chipmusic on a Gameboy?

‹ How do I make Chipmusic on a Gameboy?

You need to buy a gameboy from Ebay, you need to buy a flashcart, for which I recommend Kitsch's Store, then you need a copy of LSDJ. Check Kitsch's FAQ for information on getting LSDJ onto the cartridge. Another option for buying LSDJ would be Nonfinite's Shop, he also has a nice clear FAQ on getting LSDJ onto your cart. Also condsider Nanoloop 1.5

Please note, you can use a DMG Classic (DMG), GB pocket, GB Color, GBA, GBA SP for LSDJ and Nanoloop. You do not need to Prosound your DMG to use either program, prosounding your gameboy will have a fairly small effect on the sound quality of your DMG and no effect at all on your talent as a musician.

Again, to avoid spending cash you don't need to, both Nanoloop and LSDJ have demo versions available on their respective home-pages which you can try with an emulator.

› 4 - Chipmusic for classic computers on a classic computer

‹ 4 - Chipmusic for classic computers on a classic computer

Tread a little carefully here, working on classic computers is not for the faint of heart but here are a few links to get you going.

› How do I make music on Amiga?

‹ How do I make music on Amiga?

› 5 - Chipmusic for "modernish" handhelds

‹ 5 - Chipmusic for "modernish" handhelds

A bit of a relative term as some of these platforms are pretty old. If you want to make music on a Gameboy Advance, try Nanoloop 2.5. If you want to use a PSP, GP2x, Caanoo, Dingoo and various other linux based handhelds, you can't beat Little Piggy Tracker.

› How do I play live chipmusic?

‹ How do I play live chipmusic?

This questions comes up quite a bit too and we have a couple of good threads to read.

For a general overview on ideas for live chipmusic, please read this thread. If you are looking for something more LSDJ centric, please look here. A related thread on getting paid for live music, can be found here.

Thanks for reading and please let me know of any additions/mistakes etc!

I think Iphone/ipad apps might be getting a little beyond the scope of the FAQ? I was thinking mainly of a place for people to get started with most of the popular platforms and software which we tend to use. Totally valid idea though!

i think you should go out of your way to add every possible way to make chip, just so i can come back to this thread and say "tl:dr" and ask a question that was clearly answered within the first few lineson a serious note, anything that keeps people from potentially asking me this question is a good thing, well done man

Actually, you can get some pretty sweet iOS apps for chipmusic. I use YMCK Player myself for solos and shit, about to get Sinusoid which is a chiptune tracker. There's 8bitone as well.Maybe a mention of this stuff could be worth it?

I'm curious as to why "fakebit" is not a legitimate term??? I don't use trackers. And why is there a fakebit comp. if this is not a real term? I don't understand what you mean by it gets thrown around a lot. Its pretty simple, its people who use software to emulate hardware that isn't trackers.